No experience of a Bantam on castors, but do use them on other machines.
I'd be happy provided that the castors are outside the base footprint of the machine, when they are set at their narrowest track.

I wouldn't use these castors underneath the cabinet.

You could always lift the cabinet on a crowbar and insert a spacer at each end, maybe hardwood of a length of HD box section.so the castors are available to move the machine for access, but it's not normally resting on them.

Bill

On the plus side it has raised the lathe up, Bantams are quite low and working one for a day will give you backache. I have a Bantam 1600 of about 1965 vintage and have raised it up on two lengths of four inch square fence post. I am not sure I like the idea of all that weight on castors, I presume the casters are fixed through the bolting down bosses, if it were me I would want the casters mounted on some outrigger to take the caster outside the machines footprint, if you have ever seen a lathe with an out of balance job on a faceplate rocking about you will realise how easy it is to tip one over.

I put my S7 on casters so I could move it out to fit a new 3ph motor. The ones shown in the photo above on a Myford are very similar. I can't say that the whole experience was stress free, and whilst on casters the lathe felt very unstable. I can imagine one trying to run over a small bit of metal on the floor and tripping up the lathe with disastrous consequences!

You need some pretty serious castors if a lathe is to be stable at rest and move any sense. The small heavy duty ones used on pianos and similar aren't up to it whatever the load rating may say.

I put 6 big, screw down, ones with 5" diameter wheels on my P&W Model B hoping to make it easier to move from gate to workshop and into place.. Lathe was about a ton, castors rated about a ton and a half each so it ought to have worked OK. In practice it barely worked. Possibly a bit less faffing then roller or skates but certainly harder moving.

These days I'm a fan of sliding on steel rods laid rail fashion. Diameter in the 1/4" to 1/2" range works OK without major jack up issues to get the rods under. Using like a rail gives the machine a smooth surface to slide on so no tripping over small stones, ridges or tamping marks.

Clive

I wonder about the "levelling" of the lathe for accurate parallel turning, would this have to be done again after each move?

Rod

Sorry, did not see previous post while I was typing mine.

Edited By Rod Renshaw on 19/01/2023 18:46:10

I think that needs to be qualified with …… "if perfection is your goal".

While I don't use castors anyway, as far as I recall I only ever approximately levelled my ML7 and It's done everything I ever wanted. I would bet there are many others here with similar experience.

I don't decry people who feel that way and want to get everything aligned to a wavelength of blue light or whatever the standard is – more power to them. But horses for courses.

No

It's different levelling or lathes on ships wouldn't work

Oh I wish we hadn’t inherited the phrase levelling a lathe. All is required is that its mounting does not induce a twist to the bed. You could screw it to a wall if you liked with the bed vertical and get it turning parallel.

regards Martin

That’s almost biblical. Consider the lathes of the slant bed, they turn neither taper nor bellied, yet even these be not levelled.

😊

I can tell you since rebuilding machines is my hobby (I mean grinding, scraping, alignment not just clean and paint), and since concrete cutting, breaking grinding is my profession where I've had to grind plant room/water tank plinths to +/- 2mm over several metres, and because when I'm in the process of rebuilding (but not the alignment phase) a lathe will typically sit on casters,

1. Concrete isn't flat. Even a properly laid power-floated floor is very unlikely to be flat enough that you can move a machine sitting on four points and not have it twist. For your average tamped/trowelled slab – no chance.

2. If you sit a machine like a Bantam on casters and move it any amount, the twist of the bed will change. As a matter of fact, I have sat a bantam on casters whilst in the rebuild process and ran a test whereby I had a dial gauge reading bed twist whist it was being wheeled around and that dial gauge was swinging like a metronome. Here it is on it's 6" 200kg casters after I wheeled it out into my garden for a photo.

So if you're asking can you use a lathe that's on casters the answer is – certainly you can. If you're asking can you move it and expect it to hold alignment, even to move it one way then move it back – certainly not. For most people it's not really an issue because their lathes are not aligned anyway.

Edited By Pete Rimmer on 19/01/2023 22:11:31

My Super 7 sits on a steel cabinet which itself is bolted to spacers through the chipboard flooring and into the concrete. The lathe is 4 point mount on jacking screws. It’s aligned to turn parallel hands off. So if I’m doing anything critical I don’t lean on the lathe at all when turning. An elbow on the tailstock will throw it out , not much but enough to measure.

regards Martin

I'd be concerned about the twist/movement, that would cause inconsistency when turning, on the bed and if you use a four jaw chuck for tirning parts that aren't cylindrical/balanced movement on the castors would probably be an issue.

Edited By Henry Brown on 19/01/2023 23:26:22